jericho
6mo ago
Oh, I absolutely would be. Though I'm unsure how much of that is due to me being a lightweight (both literally and figuratively) and how much of that is just having a lower cutoff for what I consider to be "drunk."
jericho
6mo ago
Interesting - there seems to be some regional pricing going on with that one. Where I lived before, it was (and double-checking, still is) a full $20 pricier than Bulleit, but here it is only about $10 more. I'll have to check it out.
jericho
7mo ago
IIRC, some of the Great Awakening utopian cults were explicitly abstinent; not "no sex before marriage" abstinent, absolute abstinence. Sex is sinful, and the end of the world is right around the corner, so having children isn't important compared to being right with Jesus. They aren't around anymore, for mysterious reasons.
Believe you are thinking of The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing aka The Shakers. I also thought they were fully extinct, but it seems they're merely functionally extinct, with either 2 or 3 (seeing conflicting reports) remaining in Sabbathday Lake, Maine.
jericho
8mo ago
Thank you, that seems to be correct.
The murderer would be lambasted as a caricature of antifa members were he not a real person.
jericho
8mo ago
I've seen video broadcasts of organized, uniformed thugs publicly celebrating the political murder of someone very much like me, with the tacit support of a national political party, and the contented acquiescence of "moderates" everywhere.
I'll cop to ignorance on my part, whose murder does this refer to?
jericho
9mo ago
Honestly, it might be worth just keeping a lookout for whenever the inevitable Definitive Edition drops. Even as someone who liked the game and story overall, much like D:OS2 it's clear the back third got less attention than the first third and I'm guessing that much like D:OS2 many of those issues will get cleaned up later down the road.
jericho
9mo ago
There's a refugee crisis outside Baldur's Gate and it is played in a very black-and-white way.
I'm fairly sympathetic to the message and still thought it was too on-the-nose and lacked any nuance.
jericho
10mo ago
Thank you for clarifying.
I thought Aaron Burr's ambition, portrayed as unbridled by beliefs, principles, morality etc was supposed to be that.
Honestly his Act 2 character reminds me of Commodus' lines in Gladiator (obviously Commodus is a far more straightforward villain for a whole host of other reasons, but his virtues are similar).
But I have other virtues, father. Ambition. That can be a virtue when it drives us to excel. Resourcefulness, courage, perhaps not on the battlefield, but... there are many forms of courage. Devotion, to my family and to you.
jericho
10mo ago
Thank you for elaborating!
need "guardrails" to prevent vulnerable internalizers from taking these messages too seriously and personally.
Yes, absolutely. On the more serious side, this brings to mind Scott Aaronson's comment quoted in Untitled, on the less serious side of this David Mitchell bit.
Personally, to be blunt, I don't think there's much interest in actually putting up said guardrails.
Unfortunately I believe you're right. To the extent the trade off is even acknowledged (and it is generally treated as though it does not exist), it is acknowledged as being worthwhile.
jericho
11mo ago
Yeah, I actually bounced off the series when I first discovered it, went back into it due to the recommendation of someone who I trust in such matters and almost gave up again before I got to the good stuff.
Learning that the book series it was based off was itself loosely based off someone running a RPG on a web forum made a lot of the early installment weirdness suddenly make sense to me.
jericho
11mo ago
What would your metric for this be? As far as I can tell, contemporary immigrants are assimilating just as fast or faster than historically as measured by things like language or intermarriage rates (e.g. my German ancestors moved to Iowa in the 1850s and didn't stop speaking German until WWI killed off German American subculture).
It seems like the US census information for bilingualism etc for 2nd gen immigrants doesn't start until 1940 (only for either 1st gen or those unable to speak English before that), which is of course after many of the European immigrant groups of the late 1800s and early 1900s had pretty well assimilated.
That is to say while this was not revealed to me in a dream, take this as basically my unsupported impressions from 1st gen immigrants vs 2nd gen immigrants in the 16-35 age range vs 2nd gen immigrants in the 50-80 age range (which of course also opens up the possibility that the older group are simply more assimilated due to age rather than anything generational) rather than any sort of rigorous analysis.
Who do you mean by "we"? My understanding is that the rate of abortions after testing for Down Syndrome vary pretty heavily from country to country (googling around, seeing USA around 67%, France around 77% and Denmark around 98%, though that's from 2011).
Though I guess the real issue here is referring to "society" tolerating something when of course what "society" tolerates varies a great deal from one part of the world to the other (for now, at least).
jericho
1yr ago
Started reading The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution as a result of johnfabian's review here. Only made it about a quarter in but very interesting so far.
jericho
1yr ago
There are anthologies available collecting different novellas + short stories on the same theme.
I know for sure most of the Ciaphas Cain and Gaunt's Ghosts books are covered by omnibus versions, would assume others as well. For those their wikipedia pages include book order + which books are included in which omnibus, hopefully same for the others.
jericho
1yr ago
jericho
1yr ago
I recently read "The Old Axolotl" by Jacek Dukaj. It reminds me a great deal of rationalist fanfics (for good and for ill), though given the subject matter and the ending I think that is to a fair degree intentional and critical of such modes of thought.
But I have repeatedly charitably interpreted things as ironic that were in fact unironic, so I don't trust myself on that. Picking up one of his other books, "Ice", partially because I did enjoy "The Old Axolotl" and "Ice" has reviewed well and partially to get a better sense of his writing.
jericho
1yr ago
Not sure if this is exactly what you're after, but I enjoyed this series (also found here) about the evolution of Atheism in the context of Christian Europe, primarily pre-Enlightenment era roots. If you've read Dominion by Tom Holland you'll be familiar with some of the broad strokes, but I found the specific examples given of skeptics/atheists from that time period (both the real ones and the ones depicted in the fiction of the time) especially interesting.
jericho
1yr ago
Since others have already covered weight lifting (personally my experience on that front matches closer to yours):
I don't think I've ever experienced "runner's high", but I do find cross-country running genuinely enjoyable (as well as walking and jogging). But only that- I do not enjoy running on treadmills or tracks and I do not enjoy rowing or biking, whether in nature or on machines. On the flip side, other family members absolutely hate running but fell in love with rowing or biking.
jericho
1yr ago
Sounds like we have similar taste in games (and objectives, in any strategy game where I get territory on the Mediterranean coast I have an unshakeable urge to Mare Nostrum it).
In the past I've found myself in a bit of a loop with CK, Total War and Bannerlord where I go to the next one when I feel what is lacking from the current one. Something like: Bannerlord, but the diplomacy and kingdom management is lacking so -> CK, but then the battles are too automated so -> TW, but then I wish I was more in the thick of it so -> Bannerlord and repeat, not always in that exact order. Throwing in the occasional medieval-ish RPG for good measure. I have been greatly tempted by the CK3 mod where you fight the battles in Bannerlord, but I've heard it is a bit of a hot mess currently.
jericho
1yr ago
Got into VR recently, so I've been playing Beat Saber and Skyrim VR. Looking to see about setting up Elite Dangerous for VR in the near future.
For Beat Saber, I can get why most people who try it love it. I'm not usually much for rhythm games but it's quite fun and surprisingly decent cardio. Main complaint is that I don't like enough of the songs on offer to give it staying power. Looking into custom maps, just concerned most will be tuned to too high of a difficulty level.
For Skyrim VR (admittedly modded with what are generally regarded as "the essentials"), it's wild how different an experience it is and how new it feels given the hours I've already dropped into the non-VR version. The feeling of just wandering around the world and delving into dungeons is great. It has made me very hopeful for Elite Dangerous- my favorite part of that has always been exploration and I feel like VR will enhance that greatly.
jericho
1yr ago
My family had cats growing up, but they were pretty standoffish. Current cat is perhaps the most dog-like I've ever encountered, to the extent that he even likes to play fetch. Certainly a wide range of cat "personalities".
jericho
6mo ago
I agree with you broadly but:
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson held people captive and forced them to work by threat of violence. Does that mean all of their social/political/economic views are suspect as a result?
I have absolutely encountered people making basically this argument.
jericho
1yr ago
At the bottom, or even the middle, race might serve as a better proxy for coarsely compatible genes than achievement. Because there isn't a lot of achievement to judge by.
The specific examples you gave reminded me of some of the (all white) parents on my mother's (lower middle class) side of the family.
I think there is much to be said about how the loss of "good" non-college jobs (especially in certain regions) in the US has led to a blending of the middle, working and underclass.
My cousins on that side had kids with people who, on paper, were very similar to them in terms of finances, education, race, religion, etc (often even meeting in their shared workplaces). But, if you went a generation or two back, the class differences would be apparent. And while they'd all fall under "red tribe", looking closer there would be clear cultural differences as well.
Obviously that still leaves open the % split between nature and nurture in terms of behavior, my point being the difficulty in distinguishing based on achievement may continue to become more difficult as automation marches on and class divides widen at the top and narrow near the middle and bottom.
I've met a couple, though it is unclear to me if they were truly pagans or just atheists who liked the aesthetics.
More options
Context Copy link